I've been known to add liquid cooling to my bike on occasion. I'll pick up an ice cold 6 pack on the way home and install it in the tourpak (temporarily).

 

Best answer to water cool a pre 14 I've heard.

 

That would be because they can more easily control the heat higher compression generates.

 

Do you really get that big a cooling difference by the update, hell I've had Metrics with full engine cooling and the motors still ran hot as hell. Now,if cooling a mc motor was as effective as most vehicles, now you've got cooling otherwise wth?

 

I agree, it could be done this way. Just like a car...

 

There's a saying that a typical engine wastes three quarters of its energy as heat. How much is avoided using ceramic/plasma coatings? You can reduce the heat coming off the exhaust headers a lot by doing so. Some companies claim exhaust surface temperatures reduce by up to 33%. Would be a lot cheaper to do so.

I am surprised it's not more widely offered for H-D headers because, surely, that's where most of the heat is coming from?

Thinking about it, an add on kit shouldn't cost much more than the cost of a high performance cast or CNC after market head and radiator, and if it was combined with the same performance benefits it would not be a dumb idea. I've paid no attention to this, did H-D patent the idea in a lock tight manner?

Water cooling barrels would be a lot easier but to ask why no one has done them is to propose something that looks like these ...

 

I had a 94 K1100 BM LTD. Liquid cooled and the engine had a rep for a very very long life, it was nick named the brick. Liquid cooling allowed high performance and long life as did high tech materials. Heat however - wow in stop and go traffic I thought my shins would blister when the rad fans came on.

I think I would wait a year or two when these bikes come on the used market. What I don't get is why the touring models don't have a Vrod engine option.

With emissions being steadily tightened all the air cooled engines are likely to become a part of history.

 

Funny you should mention emission, this year is the first time since I started riding mc they no longer require testing, and I've been riding in this state my whole life.

 

Or rather, what you might mean is why the V-Rod range isn't sold with a touring model option ...

There is at least one company that makes a bagger-ized V-Rod kit in the shape of a Road Glide. It's a sort of heresy amongst the traditionalists but I think it looks OK and if you are a smaller (average-sized) person, say 5'10" and under and in shape it would work well ... but be "too metric" for the above. It could even be a challenger for some of the Japanese and European touring bikes.

It strikes me part of the reason H-D stick with the big engines and bike is not just due to conservative tastes, because their target demographics got physically bigger too and they need a big bike to fit on.

New models and ideas always take a couple of generations to shakedown and be revised. Be happy with what you got, focus your mind elsewhere ... and wait a few years.